In Haldir's Defense revised
by xavilyn
Summary: The revised version of my soon to be gone "first draft"


**hello everyone! This is my first fan fic and I am having a helluva time getting this darn thing to work!**

**if you see anything wrong with anything please let me know and tell me how to remove it (especially stories) cause I can't seem to understand anything with the downloading or editing process, (lol!)**

"The dwarf breathes so loud we could have shot him in the dark" Those are the first words we hear

from Haldir (hal-deer) of Lothlorien. Haldir is the March Warden/Captain of the Guard in the beautiful

elf kingdom of Lothlorien. There isn't much known about him. Even J.R.R. Tolkein didn't have much

to say about him. Then again Tolkien seemed to leave what we would think as important descriptions

out of his stories. For example, people are still fussing over the character Legolas's true hair color. So like many the Haldir fans like the Legolas fans have made their own little spin offs of his

persona based on little information. There are two basic assumptions of Haldir and everything else is a

different variation of the two. These assumptions are badgered on by the growing amount of Fan

Fiction (The practice of writing made up stories and 'posting' them on web sites made for and by other

equally infatuated fans). The two basic personalities of Haldir are; (1) he's an arrogant jerk.

(2) He's a bitter cold womanizer. Persona no.1 is the more popular of the two. It can also be some

combination of 1 and 2, it can be less or more depending on the author of the fan fiction wishes.

You don't usually hear what people have to say about him unless you don't mind having to explain

who he is in the movie ("You know he's the blond elf guy who got killed in Helm's Deep,

remember?" ) I've had to. Of course these are the unobsessed. Kind of ironic considering he's got

tens of thousands of fan fiction about or co-starring him.

I guess you can understand why people think he's like that; my sister for example thought he was one

of the bad guys, seriously. When Haldir made his comment on Gimli the dwarf's breathing the

fellowship had been surrounded by thirty or so archers ready shoot them. That wasn't the nicest hello.

He also swaggered in with an air of slight snobbiness. Then later on he comments after Gimli offends

Haldir by remarking on the etiquette or lack of it of the elves Haldir retorts: "We have not dealings

with the dwarves since the dark days." Gimli replies by saying something the director of the films,

Peter Jackson had the decency to not translate. Haldir does come across as a little tactless and cocky.

His politeness to Legolas and Aragorn seems stiff and more protocol than a want to be

well-mannered.

But what about being a bitter cold womanizer? Look at it this way. Frodo and Sam are best friends,

Legolas and Gimli eventually become best friends, Merry and Pippin stick together like glue, Aragorn

and Arwen are lovers, Celeborn and Galadriel are married. And who does Haldir have? Rumil and

Orophin, his brothers? They're not in the movie, they're only introduced in the book and they can't

speak English. We don't see or read about Haldir having a best friend or a lover. We don't see enough

or read enough to know what goes on in his life or what motivates him like we do the others. There's

no background to him. All we know for sure is that he has two brothers, no one knows if they're

younger or older or if Haldir's the middle child. So it's likely that we as naturally imaginative people

would make up stories of him having several girlfriends and not settling down. And he didn't seem too

happy about the fellowship trespassing into Lothlorien. And he seemed less than thrilled to be at

Helm's Deep. He seems cold because he doesn't yell, he doesn't give us huge grins like Aragorn

occasionally does. He doesn't look sad, he doesn't look angry, he doesn't look happy.

He's almost blank. Only rarely do we see him look trepidated or pleased but its very quick, only a

sharp glint in the eyes, only a small upward curve of the lips. What we do see in Haldir is the face of a

warrior hardened by years even decades of fighting, protecting, risking, and yes, sacrifice. A warrior

who's done a lot, perhaps more than his share with maybe a little heartache, and maybe brief joy too

and few rewards or thank-yous. He does everything and expects nothing in return save for the

satisfaction of a job well done.

Haldir takes his job as March Warden very seriously. He's the Captain of the Guard, he's

the Border Patrol, and he's the Head of Security all piled into one person. You can imagine how busy

he must be. As for his anti-dwarf comments the Elves and Dwarf races have been bitter enemies for so

long nobody can remember why they hate each other so much. So racism is to be expected. If it wasn't

Haldir it would have been someone else, and on top of that Gimli was being quite rude in the first

place. And his grim demeanor arriving at Helm's Deep? Maybe he knew he was going to die, that this

would be his final hours of life? As for being arrogant, maybe it's just the way he is, the way he

presents himself, he might actually have been pleasant and (dare I say it?) kind. And the only real

emotion we ever see is during his last breaths; a look of someone who sees the bodies of fellow

warriors, cold and lifeless on the ground and knowing his own body will fail and become like the

others, a look of pain from the fatal wound mixed with sadness and shock and even disbelief, and at

the last breath we see acceptance. Acceptance of death without fear without remorse, fighting for

something that seemed hopeless but believed in to the end. From death will come glory, from glory

will come remembrance of an individual who was misunderstood but redeemed.


End file.
